Apparatuses and methods for sorting recycled material and the like are very well known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,919 granted on Jan. 26, 1999 to EASON relates to a high throughput sorting system. The sorting system provides a high degree of sorting accuracy even in high throughput sorting applications such as high speed wood chip sorting. In one embodiment, a sorting apparatus includes a shaker for distributing stock material, a spectrographic analyzer for identifying unacceptable material in a product stream, an ejector for diverting unacceptable material from the product stream, a three-zone sorting receptacle and a recirculating system for returning a selected portion of the sorter output for an additional pass by the analyzer and ejector. The three-zone sorting receptacle divides the product stream into an accept portion, a rejection portion, and an ambiguous portion including both acceptable product and unacceptable material. The ambiguous portion is re-sorted for improved accuracy at high throughput levels.
Also known to the Applicant are the following US patents which describe other apparatuses and machines for sorting material whether mechanically, optically or other: U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,937; U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,363; U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,966; U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,311; U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,247; U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,925; U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,887; U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,488; U.S. Pat. No. 5,508,512; U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,537; U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,437; U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,214; U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,921; U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,663; U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,460; U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,801; U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,073; U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,964; U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,056; U.S. Pat. No. 6,137,074; U.S. Pat. No. 6,144,004; U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,018; U.S. Pat. No. 6,265,684 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,303,952 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,305 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,380,503 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,460,788 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,504,124 B1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,726,028 B2; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,787,724 B2.
Also known to the Applicant are the following foreign patents and/or patent applications which also describe other apparatuses and machines for sorting material: Belgium 0849006; Germany 69721199.1; Spain 0849006; Finland 0849006; France 0849006; United Kingdom 0849006; Netherlands 0849006; Sweden 0849006; Canada 2,199,021; and Canada 2,224,918.
However, a substantial drawback associated with several of the above-mentioned apparatuses is that they do not enable to specifically identify materials going through a product stream, and to sort them accordingly, in a precise manner, and at a high output rate. For example, the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,919 is used essentially to sort materials into “acceptable” and “non-acceptable” products, rather than enabling a manner to specifically and precisely identify the nature of the materials being sorted. Furthermore, it is also known in the art that in regards to systems used for sorting materials, it is preferable to have a design that enables a variety of configurations so as to carry out various different types of sorting applications, while enabling to reduce assembling, operating, maintenance and/or repair costs associated with the operation of the system, while not necessarily affecting the overall sorting capability thereof. Moreover, it is also known in the art that actual related machines on the market work with the inside of a specific wave length, and with a specific and limited library. Therefore, it would be useful to provided a machine that could work simultaneously or not, and thus with a multitude of products, or a related application which could rely or not on the use of wave lengths being completely different. Furthermore, it would be useful to have a system that could identify clear and/or colored materials just with the analysis of the system, and/or the intensity thereof, independently, to the material HDPE clear or colored, PET clear or colored, etc.
Hence, in light of the aforementioned, there is a need for an improved system, which by virtue of its design and components, would be able to overcome some of the above-discussed prior art problems.